Corporate Dough

Huge corporate chain with 2,000 locations, not my usual food.  But this stuff just tastes really good.  Not my usual crowd either for the lunch bunch.  A few of the places we go seem to attract the "soccer mom" set: younger housewives with kids in tow.  Must be all the salads here.

But at a place literally titled "Bread-Basket Bread", you should order, uhh, bread, like above.  Sandwich, baguette chunk, and optional pastry for .99 more. Lots of bread. Sandwiches you can order off the menu that actually taste great.  My favorite here used to be something called the Asiago Steak sandwich.  Panera risked dropping me as a customer when they dropped this old choice from their menu recently.  So I tried the replacement Steak & Arugula, above.  Tastes like nothing else I've ever had, and the combination is incredibly yummy.  (What is arugula, anyway? I guess you could call it Italian kale, or others call it "salad rocket".)  Hats off to the creative sandwich chefs here who forced me to try one of their new surprising offerings.